th to believe that nothing is impossible, don't
slink through the centuries like Russian peasantry. They are bound to
leave their mark somewhere, and don't you forget it."

But isn't it sad to think that with all Eternity behind and before us we
cannot, even though we would pay for it with sorrow, filch from the
Immensities one hundred poor years of life, wherein to watch the two
Great Experiments? A hundred years hence India and America will be worth
observing. At present the one is burned out and the other is only just
stoking up. When I left my opponent there was much need for faith,
because I fell into the hands of a perfectly delightful man whom I had
met casually in the street, sitting in a chair on the pavement, smoking
a huge cigar. He was a commercial traveller, and his beat lay through
Southern Mexico, and he told me tales, of forgotten cities, stone gods
up to their sacred eyes in forest growth, Mexican priests, rebellions,
and dictatorships, that made my hair curl. It was he who dragged me
forth to bathe in Salt Lake, which is some fifteen miles away from the
city, and reachable by many trains which are but open tram-cars. The
track, like all American tracks, was terrifying in its roughness; and
the end of the journey disclosed the nakedness of the accommodation.
There were piers and band houses and refreshment stalls built over the
solid grey levels of the lake, but they only accentuated the utter
barrenness of the place. Americans don't mix with their scenery as yet.

And "Have faith," said the commercial traveller as he walked into water
heavy as quicksilver. "Walk!" I walked, and I walked till my legs flew
up and I had to walk as one struggling with a high wind, but still I
rode head and shoulders above the water. It was a horrible feeling, this
inability to sink. Swimming was not much use. You couldn't get a grip of
the water, so I e'en sat me down and drifted like a luxurious anemone
among the hundreds that were bathing in that place. You could wallow for
three-quarters of an hour in that warm, sticky brine and fear no evil
consequences; but when you came out you were coated with white salt from
top to toe. And if you accidentally swallowed a mouthful of the water,
you died. This is true, because I swallowed half a mouthful and was
half-dead in consequence.

The commercial traveller on our return journey across the level flats
that fringe the lake's edge bade me note some of the customs of his
people